With more than one million page views and more than 4,000 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Sunday, July 06, 2014

It
wasn’t exactly a stem cell tag team, but both the journalNature and the San
Francisco Chronicle this past week carried lengthy pieces examining the state
of affairs at California’s $3 billion stem cell agency.

Neither of the articles was a valentine, but overall
the agency should be satisfied with them -- if only for the reason that they will make
more people aware of what the agency is doing. The agency received something of a cyber bonus with a video on the Nature Web site that accompanied its online article(see video above). Coverage of the agency,
especially in the mainstream media, has been minimal over the last several
years.

Meanwhile the agency has been trying to spread the word as it
tries to fend off its financial demise in less than three years, when funds for
new research awards run out.

Both pieces covered familiar ground for readers
of this Web site. And both emphasized the looming financial crunch for the
agency, which is examining the possibility of some sort of private-public
financing arrangement. The agency has not ruled out another bond measure to secure
voter approval for as much $5 billion in additional financing. Neither article
discussed the likelihood of voter approval, which is problematic.

Both pieces took a run at providing summaries
of the work that the agency has financed and its contributions. Both noted that
the agency has yet to produce a stem cell therapy despite the apparent promises
of the ballot campaign 10 years ago that created the agency.

“A
decade ago, voters in California changed the biomedical research landscape by
directly funding embryonic stem-cell research. Now the organization they
created needs a hit to survive.”

Hayden
wrote,

“The institute has navigated a difficult path, however. CIRM had to
revamp its structure and practices in response to complaints about inefficiency
and potential conflicts of interest. It has also had to adapt its mission to
seismic shifts in stem-cell science.

A "home run" is now in order in the words of agency board member Sherry Lansing, the Nature article said.

Hayden
interviewed former agency chairman Robert Klein about his plan for a $5 billion
bond measure, perhaps in 2016. She quoted Klein as warning that the nation and
California could see a “theocratic government” in the near future that would endanger research.
Hayden wrote that Klein said,

“We have to protect science's access to the full range of
cellular types now. And in doing that, we will protect the freedom of science
to ethically pursue knowledge in this country outside of religious ideology.”

Klein also said,

“If we don't take a position now the next ten years may see a theocratic government at the state and federal level that restricts scientific research in this country for the next 50–100 years.”

As for the agency’s accomplishments, Hayden wrote,

“(I)n
California, researchers are making nerve, heart, eye and skin cells from iPS
cells and embryonic stem cells — a range of work rare for a single state — and
they aim to test many of these in humans. They are developing drugs against
cancer stem cells, which are thought to perpetuate the disease. And they are
leading the world's only two trials of treatments that combine gene editing and
cell therapy to treat HIV. They are doing all this with an unmatched
infrastructure, including a network of 12 new or newly renovated facilities,
and a funding pipeline that acts as a beacon to young scientists.

“Almost every country would be jealous of what they've
got in California,” says Christine Mummery of the Leiden University Medical
Center in the Netherlands.”

Mummery is a member of the agency's scientific advisory board.

Stephanie Lee was the writer on the San Francisco Chronicle story that was on the first page of the business section on July 5.

It was headlined,

“Stem cell researchers under pressure to produce”

The headline was drawn from this paragraph by Lee,

“Fund recipients are under pressure to show results - commercially viable therapies, ideally. Universities and other nonprofit groups have received most of the money, but the pressure is especially heavy on biotechnology companies that have staked their livelihoods on such therapies."

Lee mentioned StemCells, Inc., (along with photos at the company’s lab), Asterias, Capricor, Calimmune and ViaCyte as companies that are making progress.

She continued,

“As (clinical) trials add more patients, they become more expensive. The challenge in the future will be to find money to keep these trials going when the stem cell agency runs out of money.

"’It's certainly not going to make life easier,’ said (Martin) McGlynn (CEO) of StemCells, which reported a $28 million operating loss last year."’To their credit, the California voters stepped up to the plate, and $3 billion is a lot of money,’ he said. ‘But an awful lot more is going to be needed to finish the job.’"

Lee continued,

“It is not realistic to expect a stem cell therapy to reach consumers in five years, especially when the field is so young, said Enal Razvi, managing director at Select Biosciences, a life sciences market research company.

"Even so, by 2017, ‘if they don't have products already on the marketplace, they should not be expecting public money to fill their portfolio,’ he said. ‘Apple doesn't go to California and keep asking for money to build their own iPhone.’"

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.